


She Was Bored

by Shadow_of_Quill



Category: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Genre: F/M, Horror, evil!Penny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 01:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_of_Quill/pseuds/Shadow_of_Quill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boredom can lead to devastating consequences. Sometimes even for the person who is bored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Was Bored

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, look, Penny is out of character.

She is bored.

That is how it starts. She is bored, and remembers _him_ from so long ago. Her Billy, sweet and innocent, filled with a burning desire to change the world but so determined not to hurt anyone.

Such a sweet child. Such a gentle soul.

Such a favoured toy - like the stuffed animals toddlers drag with them.

She misses playing with him.

Maybe... she could play with him again...?

The more she considers the idea, the more she likes it. A new game. A _special_ game; he deserves nothing less.

A game of changed roles...

***

She winces and pouts as Billy, Dr. Horrible, describes his latest beating at the hands of Captain Hammer to his unknown audience on the other side of the webcamera. How very rude the man is, to damage someone else's toy - even if he doesn't know that's what Billy is.

It is amusing to hear her devout pacifist boast of his progress towards joining the ELE. _She_ has never been a member; has never needed to be, has never seen the point in following anyone else's lead.

She is their boogeyman, the hidden fear that they cower from and pretend not to believe in.

She wonders if she is still whispered of, in this latest reworking of the world to suit her latest whim.

Dr. Horrible reveals his current plan, and she frowns slightly. She had not improved his skills, had expected part of her fun to come from watching him failing to fill a role that he was never meant for.

Billy hid a surprising skill for scientific innovation, it seems.

He always was too scared of being on the 'wrong' side, she thinks, and dismisses the faint prickle of unease.

***

He speaks of the beautiful girl in the laundrette, and she preens herself. She took on his previous role, of the idealistic do-gooder, purely to show him how aggravating their pointless arguments on the subject had been.

Not that he knows this yet, of course.

It's adorable how he tries and fails to work up enough courage to speak with her. She plays the bright-eyed innocent, bats her lashes, hides her laughter at his stumbling mistakes. She left his helpless charm unaltered purely so she could have this joy.

It is just as good as it was the first time around.

***

She puts effort into her home for the homeless - she has no intent of failing at anything she does. She does not admit to herself that there is a quiet fulfillment in this particular success that she has never experienced before.

She refuses to remember Billy, eyes glowing, trying to explain it to her before...

_She refuses to remember._

***

Keeping her polite demeanour as she is shoved aside when trying to gather signatures is easier than the rude people around her imagine, purely because she knows how simply she could wipe them from existence with a single choice.

At her 'rescue' she pretends admiration of Captain Hammer to see her Billy's helpless jealousy. It makes the hidden part of her laugh - her toy is a puppet, dancing so nicely in his strings.

She even allows Captain Hammer liberties that should, by rights, have required that he beg on bent knees for a month or more, for the thrill of Billy's reaction. Her role is not constricting - if it were, she would abandon it in an instant. She keeps to it for her enjoyment.

No one else's enjoyment matters. It never has.

It never will.

***

The grand opening of the shelter - _her_ shelter, fruit of her labours - is ruined by macho posturing. She feels the pain, the shock, and doesn't quite understand how she could be so vulnerable as to die from such a minor thing...

Billy kneels beside her, begging her to survive and be well.

Spitefully, she tells him that Captain Hammer will save them. His pain is a familiar sharp sweetness as she sinks into the void.

Before, his pain had been at his own death, not at hers.

She never did take rejection well.

***

The dark fades. The world becomes clearer.

Black goggles hide the eyes of the man watching her, but she knows him for her toy, her plaything. She smiles.

"No." He turns on a minion, faceless extra whose existence she had not even noticed, and snarls, "That is not good enough! That is not my Penny!"

The minion quails, flees, and she and her toy are alone. He looks to her.

...He isn't Billy.

"You did this." The accusation is unemotional. She would try to speak, but her voice has not yet returned, and she floats in forced silence as he continues, "Billy was never meant to be a villain, was he? You pushed him into this role." His lips quirk into a cold sneer. "I suppose I should thank you for my existence." He raises a hand, studies it. "Thank you for pain. Thank you for failure. Thank you for the knowledge that I only exist because you could not leave the world as it was - whatever _that_ was like - and thank you for every insult, every injury, _every second_ of _knowing_ that I am the shield of a _weakling_ who was _only weak because you forced him to be._ " The sneer grows. "So let me show you my gratitude.

"You're my only link with Billy, now." The change in subject confuses her, but he doesn't notice. "He's retreated so far into us that I can't drag him out by myself. Which wouldn't be a problem if he weren't the part of us that is the baserock of all the rest, but as it is I am in constant danger of mental disintegration. But he'll come back for his Penny." The cold smile grows. "His sweet, innocent Penny, whose purehearted devotion is a balm to his weary soul." She thinks he might glance at her behind those goggles. "You aren't sweet and innocent. Yet. But I don't need your _real_ self, and there are so many useful things to be learned in the course of these experiments..."

He leans over her. "Billy loves what you pretended to be. I need that from you, but it's all I need. By the time I'm finished, you'll 'love' us both.

"And maybe I'll leave you part of your real self trapped helplessly behind your eyes to know that you made your own downfall."

***

She is Penny. She is Dr. Horrible's lover. She is the only one aside from Moist who knows Billy.

And every second of her life, a part of herself she doesn't know exists is screaming.

**Author's Note:**

> (horrible grin) Oh, look, a happy ending!
> 
> *Disclaimer: If I really thought this was a happy ending, I would not have described the story as horror.


End file.
